Stop TB Partnership

ACSM Subgroup meeting 2012

Shangri-la Hotel, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
11-12 November 2012

The Advocacy, Communication and Social Mobilization (ACSM) Subgroup held its annual Subgroup meeting on 11-12 November 2012, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Around 40 participants joined the 1.5 day meeting, which focused on three main topics:

Sharing ACSM good practices
Discussing the future of "ACSM"
Improving Subgroup engagement

Country-level implementers shared their ACSM good practices ensuring all initiatives presented had concrete data outcomes. Examples from the field included community engagement activities in India, success of local committees in the Dominican Republic, capacity building of CSOs in Ethiopia as well as working with media and placing op-eds.

Participants engaged in a long discussion about ACSM and reflected on the recommendation from the Steering Committee of the Stop TB Partnership’s Operational Strategy that the TB community re-think ACSM and consider dropping the acronym. Majority of participants agreed that ACSM is being implemented in all countries and changing the acronym now would cause too much confusion and would signify a huge budget for countries. Instead the participants agreed to work on a 2-pager to address the misunderstanding regarding ACSM, but to keep the acronym for now.